Monday, December 17, 2007

The Defense of Hidgeon: The Plague Years

According to The Shifted Librarian, "Karen Markey is a faculty member in the School of Information at the University of Michigan. Earlier this year, she received a small grant from the Delmas Foundation to build a prototype online board game that teaches students information-literacy skills. Her game prototype is now fully operational and is being tested and evaluated by a class of 75 undergraduates at the University of Michigan. They’ve just finished conducting interviews with student game players, but they haven’t had sufficient time to mull over interview data and analyze game play logs. They already recognize that the incentive for playing the game is a critical issue and future games must be intimately connected to a class assignment or project."

Although the game is not online for everyone, what information out there on it looks good. Good library instruction games/tutorials are few and far between.

2 comments:

When I looked at the video a few weeks ago it appeared to me that the solution to every information need is to go to Google and find the answer in the first three items on the result page. I think our students already know how to do that. Am I missing something here? It's a game, but is it a game that helps students to become information literate? Maybe this is just the prototype and V.2 will start to explore more than just Google.

Steven, I suggest you contact Karen Markey and ask her your questions, as she is the single best source to answer your questions. She may also be able to give you a login so that you can see later stages of the game. As you know, primary sources are good things. :)